Love Is for Tomorrow (11 page)

Kovac chewed on his last makizushi piece, holding it between his chopsticks. His lips clenched together and his eyes were watering. Too much wasabi.

The ginger was to neutralize the taste. The wasabi was to kill bacteria.

“Okay.” Kovac sucked air to cool his mouth. “What’s the point then?”

“The point is, she’s the reason I quit Delta Force,” Antoine said. “No one else could have brought me to that. She’s a woman to kill for.”

Antoine watched the screens for any movement. Priya continually processed the feed from the hallway cameras to track who entered and left the building as well as where they went. The problem was, they didn’t know who the dealer was. The only choice was to monitor Khabib.

“She didn’t like the killing part,” Kovac said. “Mine likes the killing part.”

“That’s why you two are soul mates,” Antoine said.

Kovac grinned. “But at some point, I have to ask myself...is revenge all there is? I mean, it doesn’t change anything.”

Antoine could relate to that.

“It takes the grief.”

Kovac nodded. “But the best revenge...isn’t the one that gets you killed. It’s living well.”

Antoine heard a crash. It was close, one or two rooms away and it felt violent. He grabbed a tablet and checked Khabib’s room. No one was there.

Kovac went to the door spy and looked outside, then opened the door to check the corridor. He must’ve heard it too.

They listened, holding their breath. Kovac held up a fist to stop.

Antoine stayed put without making a sound. Uncomfortable seconds followed, without any noise. It was too quiet.

Kovac looked back to Antoine.

“What the hell was that?” he mouthed. He grabbed the grip of his holstered gun.

Antoine pushed up from the bed and slipped into his shoes.

“Priya, did you see or hear anything?” he asked.

“Negative, there’s a lot of people coming and going,” she said.

“Anyone on our floor at the moment?” Antoine wanted to know.

“One man about half an hour ago in the room opposite Khabib’s,” Priya said. “And ten minutes ago, another person, in a hoodie, in the same room.”

Antoine’s eyes wandered back to the video feed screen, showing an empty room. His eyes met with Kovac’s. He had a bad feeling about this. He broke into a sweat.

“He changed rooms for the meeting,” Antoine said. The words left his lips like a revelation he had been too blind to see. They had been outfoxed.

“Priya, get a still on the man who entered that room and the one in the hoodie. It might be Khabib.”

They made their way down the hallway. He had the fibre optic and phone in his hands.  Antoine switched both on while he hurried down the corridor. He bent down and inserted the fiber optic head beneath the door. Kovac pressed his shoulder against the doorframe and kept looking in both directions, watching their backs.

All Antoine heard was the beating of his own heart and his heavy breathing. He tried to calm himself. The fibre optic feed was shaky. The picture blurred. He could recognize table legs, stools, a table and an end of the bed. He saw a body sprawled on the floor.

Damn
.

Antoine wanted to swear but had to keep his mouth shut. He signaled to Kovac that one person was down.

He formed his fingers into a claw to sign “Breach.”

Kovac kicked the door open. Antoine stormed in with his handgun drawn.

The suite was empty, but the window was open. Antoine leaned out and stared down. The hooded man jumped down from the wall and sprinted towards the street. Antoine lost visual contact as he dashed around the building.

Kovac secured the remaining rooms and returned to the man. He put a finger to his carotid artery and then shook his head.

“Not again,” Kovac sighed. “Another dead body to get rid of.”

Antoine frowned.

“That’s Bellic.”

He took a closer look at the dead body.

“There’s no blood on the clothes. No visible injuries.”

Antoine laid his face flat against the floor.

“They sat at the table,” he pointed out. “There are slight traces in the carpet. The back of this seat hit the floor.”

“That was the crash we heard,” Kovac said.

He went behind Antoine and crossed his arms.

“They were probably talking. The killer paced around then came from behind. From that position it’s nearly impossible to get out, when you’re taken by surprise. After losing consciousness, Khabib could do whatever he wanted with Bellic.”

Antoine flipped the corpse around and searched its pockets, then let out a sigh.

“What is it?” Kovac asked.

“His phone and keys are gone,” Antoine said, looking up. “It was Khabib. Everything he would need to know is on that phone. And everything we need to know, gone.”

***

Shanghai, China

“
Lao ban
.” Mei Ling inclined her head towards Zhou. “The RAT is ready.”

She had changed since the last time Zhou had seen her. Her face was pale and dark circles shadowed her eyes. It was hard to trust anyone. If one trusted friend could be bought, so could others. Mei Ling’s loyalty and dedication seemed unwavering but...

The Remote Access Tool would shed some light on who was behind the great betrayal. Someone got to Chen or he cracked. That was a betrayal in Zhou’s eyes, whether coerced or bribed, the two million sitting in Chen’s account looked like thirty coins of silver.

He cleared his throat.

“Thank you,” Zhou said, as he took his place in the command center. This was not a fight out in the open. There were no bullets flying like in the old days. It was the hidden battle, fought twenty four seven, all over the world. It was the war of information. 

“Do you want to follow the money first or the potential buyers,
lao ban
?”

“I want to hit them all. Here’s the list of IP addresses,” Zhou said. “All of our targets.”

“With all we got,
lao ban
?” Mei Ling said.

“Would the attack be traceable?” Zhou asked.

Mei Ling shook her head. “No. Data will be requested from multiple servers and shared. It will look like an
Anonymous
data leak attack.”

Zhou handed her a data-stick.

Mei Ling plugged it into her processor and scrolled through the list. A sea of numbers, codes that she read like an open book. “These are all targets?” she asked again.

Zhou nodded, standing next to her. He had spent the last week getting analyst to go through every possible buyer and bank that could be involved.

“It’s us against the world now,” Zhou said. He saw this as a necessary evil. Worst case his government would defend him. Whoever had his technology could inflict a large amount of damage if it fell into the wrong hands. It was not a stretch to assume it was already there. Chen’s dead body signaled foul play.

“We’ll be attacking practically every nation under the sun,” Mei Ling said scrolling through the targets.

“Whoever decided to meddle with us, will soon find out that there’s no place to hide.”

CHAPTER TEN

HACKER’S PARADISE

“There are ten kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary numerals, and those who don’t.” - Ian Stewart

Vienna, Austria

“Give me a quick report,” Rose said, hurrying into the office. “Who was hit?”

Priya shook her head.

“From Citi to Swiss banks, weapon manufactures, spy agencies, militaries,” she said. “The list goes on. It’s shorter to tell you who wasn’t hit.”

“First we lose Khabib and then this,” Rose said. “Any leads?”

“I can’t trace the attacker back. It came from out of nowhere, on a massive scale. At one point, systems started dumping their data onto the web. Like all files became public.” She stopped in her tracks. “Once on the other side of the firewall anyone can scan them. The hack is just one part. Very
leakslike
. But here is what is most interesting. The data is being crawled for something. Someone is looking for something specific, while the defenses are down.”

Rose frowned.

“The US took the brunt of it, so I’m guessing it wasn’t them,” Priya said.

“Or a good alibi.”

“Authorities are looking into a possible Chinese connection but the Chinese deny involvement,” Priya said.

“Priya, you said that data is now on the other side of the firewall. Could you crawl data while it is still there?” Rose asked with her eyes sparkling. She was going to make the most out of this. She did not give Priya time to respond. A nightmare scenario had given her hope. “I need you to use that window the cyber-attack caused. Hack into the CIA and look for any files containing the names: Olga Kovalenko, Tanya Sharipova or Dwayne Carter.”

“Who is Dwayne Carter?”

“Just another lead.”

“I can’t hack the CIA from the outside,” Priya said. “I need to get on the inside.”

“There’s no time to get you into Langley.”

“I’m not talking about Langley.”

Priya glanced towards the Techgate tower two hundred meters to the south.

“There is an NSA listening post right on our doorstep. If I can access one of their servers then I will be logged in as if on the US national server and could remotely ask for files. I can use it as an entry point and then launch my search from there which will look like an internal query.”

“Do it,” Rose said unsure exactly what Priya planned to do, but she understood enough to know that she could get results.

Priya smirked. “I will infiltrate it later tonight. I just need to find a way onto the premises without arising suspicion.”

“How do you plan to get inside?” Rose asked.

“That’s the easiest part” Priya said. “I just need to find a janitor and clone the key card. That would give me unrestricted access to the building,” Priya said revealing her plan.

***

Priya entered the building at 2:47 AM.

“That took way longer than expected,” she said.

“Don’t get too cocky,” Bekkend said. “Stay on your toes. With all the agencies recovering we don’t know what they will do.”

Emergency lights showed the way to the elevator. “The servers are on level thirteen,” Bekkend said.

Priya swiped her cloned key card and used the elevator pad. The doors opened and she stepped in. Some systems had already recovered, although the pattern was random, so she had to hurry.

She got out on level thirteen and adrenaline hit her. She crept through to the end of the hall where the servers were located.

“Okay Bekkend, I’m in position,” Priya said. “I need to deactivate power to the building till I get into the room. All you have to do is press enter to activate my program and press it again to deactivate it.”

“I think I got it,” Bekkend said. “I’m glad I can be of use.” It was his first time being used in a live mission yet his role was very limited.

“Hey you are also my eyes and ears. And I need you to pay a close attention to the network of computers.”

“My finger is on the button,” Bekkend replied.

“In three, two, one.” The lights in the hall died leaving the building pitch black. She went for the handle. The door opened. Only servers with their own backup power supply remained running. Their blue flashing lights provided an eerie glow. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

“I’m in.”

A few seconds later the power came back on. It was time to get to work. She looked for the main port, and plugged a mini-computer into it.

“I’m in the NSA network,” she reported. “Establishing connection. Let me know if you see anything.”

Priya was concerned that the power cut might trigger a maintenance team to come.

Seek and you shall find.

She easily found Tanya’s files and copied them. She moved on to Olga’s.

Don’t forget about Dwayne
she told herself and started the search.

“Priya, er, how many nodes are there supposed to be on the network?” Bekkend asked.

“It was thirty. Now with me it’s thirty-one,” Priya said as she copied multiple Dwayne Carter files.

“The numbers don’t add up. I see thirty-two.”

Priya stopped what she was doing and opened up the network window. It showed thirty-three computers. She double checked with her list of downloaded IP addresses. Thirty-two. Thirty-two! She was supposed to be alone in an empty building, but there was another active user in the network. Someone was there, accessing a computer, just like her in the very same moment, thinking the very same thing. If she could see him, he would see her too.